Defense
 After 1945, Albania has undergone an extensive process of
change. The country was a member of the 1955 Warsaw Pact but
left the same in 1968 to approach China. From 1976, ie.
After Mao Zedong's death, the cooperation diminished to
completely cease in 1978. Albania was, until 1989, largely
isolated in the face of major security policy changes. A
number of democratic elections, supported mainly by
neighboring countries, have been conducted and the situation
has stabilized since 1997. Periodically, however, almost
civil war-like conditions have prevailed.
During 1998-99, Albania became a reception area for
refugees from Kosovo and most recently a march and base area
for NATO allies in UN sanctions against Yugoslavia. The
defense was disorganized and is 2007-10 under
reconstruction. It is always based on selective military
duty with an initial service of 12 months and (2006)
comprises 11,000 men distributed on 6,000 men ground combat
forces, a rapid-fire brigade, 1,100 men naval forces, 13
smaller fighter ships and 1,400 man combat forces without
combat aircraft but with seven modern reconnaissance
helicopters. The material is outdated and of Chinese and
Soviet origin.
Defense costs rose from 5.3% to 6.7% of GDP in 1985-96,
having decreased to 1.5% of GDP in 2006. Albania
participates in UN peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and
Herzegovina (EUFOR), in Afghanistan (ISAF), in Iraq (MNF)
and others. NATO has a management team of 155 men Italian
troops stationed in Albania. To see related acronyms about this country, please check ABBREVIATIONFINDER where you can see that ALB stands for Albania.
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